


Unexpected

by Morgane (smilla840)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint's cooking, Friendship, Getting Together, M/M, Recruiting Natasha, Slow Build, pre-avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilla840/pseuds/Morgane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Phil becomes Natasha Romanoff’s handler shortly after her unorthodox recruitment, the last thing he expects is that the two of them will become friends – or that he’ll start spending a lot of his free time with the man who brought her in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a while, but I managed to put my summer holiday to good use! :)
> 
> Most fics have Clint and Phil already working together by the time Natasha is recruited, so I wanted to explore what might have happened if they had met through her later instead. This is the result!

Phil is in the middle of an op in Florida when Fury calls. There is no privacy in the surveillance van, too hot and too cramped, but at his curt “Yes, Director?” the two agents on shift with him suddenly become engrossed with the screens in front of them.

“I need you on the ‘carrier,” Fury says. “We’ve got a situation.”

“Do we abort?” Phil asks, feeling his agents’ attention shift back to him at the question. He narrows his eyes at them and they refocus on the job at hand, but deep down he understands their concern. They’ve been working on this take-down for months, and the last thing any of them wants is for their hard work to go to waste. Then again, Fury knows all that and he wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important. 

“Who’s your second?”

“Sitwell.”

A beat of silence, then:

“Can he handle it?”

“Yes,” Phil says without any hesitation.

“Good. Tell him he’s in charge. I’ll see you when you land.”

Fury hangs up, and Phil wipes sweat from his forehead with a silent sigh. Some details as to _why_ his presence is suddenly needed would have been nice. He’ll have to make some calls.

First thing first though. 

“Get me Sitwell,” he orders and starts looking up flights while Anderson gets through to the safehouse, and whoever is manning the comm. on their end – should be Park – locates his 2IC.

“Change of plan,” Phil says when Sitwell gets on the line and explains to him what’s going on.

 

By the time Phil lands, he’s unearthed precious little as to what the crisis is. Fury has the place locked down tight and intel isn’t filtering down even to the senior staff. All Phil could surmise was that an agent has gone AWOL, and while that’s always worrying it hardly requires that level of response.

There is a bird waiting for him at the airport and it takes him straight to the helicarrier. Fury is waiting for him on the landing pad, and Phil’s dream of a shower evaporates. He adjusts his wrinkled suit as best as he can and follows, waiting ‘til the doors of the elevator have closed behind them to ask:

“What’s up, boss?”

“Couple of weeks ago we got intel that the Black Widow was going to be in Warsaw for a job.”

Phil nods. He may have been out of the loop in Florida, but even he heard about that.

“What happened?”

“We sent someone to intercept her. Standard kill orders. Except it didn’t exactly go as planned.”

The elevator stops, and Phil startles when he realizes where they are. 

“Wait, you mean she’s _here_?” he says, and Nick raises a sardonic eyebrow at him. 

“You always did catch on quick.”

He steps out of the elevator and into the detention centre and Phil goes with him, not at all surprised by the sight that greets them, heavily armed guards lining the corridor. He wouldn’t take any chance either.

“We lost contact with our agent after two days. He resurfaced last night, calling for a pick-up. Brought _her_ along.”

“Who was it?” Phil asks, and Fury comes to a stop in front of an interview room, nodding at the one-way mirror.

It takes Phil a couple of seconds to place the man on the other side and assign a name to the – bruised and bloody – face, but when he does he frowns. Barton leads one of their strike teams and on his downtime he’s Fury’s go-to guy for certain types of solo ops. It’s need-to-know, and Phil’s never needed to know – has never asked either –, but Barton’s the best sniper SHIELD has and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what those missions entail. 

Phil personally doesn’t know Barton very well, or at all really, just enough that they nod at each other when they cross paths and make small talk when they find themselves in the same elevator. They’ve worked on a few ops together, and the impression Barton had left on Phil is that of a sharp tongue, sharper eyes, and an excellent strategic mind. Barton lacks the ego that makes some team leaders chafe at working under someone else, but he is not afraid to speak his mind, especially when he feels his team’s safety is on the line. Phil remembers once spending fifteen minutes arguing with him over locations until they had reached a compromise that had satisfied them both, and how Barton’s presence had usually made jobs easier – if not necessarily smoother. So while he certainly can’t pretend to have any deep insights into the man’s psyche, he trusts his instincts and Barton’s never struck him as the type to go rogue. 

“So?” Fury says, and Phil glances at him briefly before refocusing his gaze on the man behind the glass.

“Why isn’t he in Medical?” he asks instead of answering, because Barton looks like crap. In fact he looks seconds away from passing out and as if he’s only keeping himself upright on his chair by sheer will. Phil wouldn’t be surprised if his dark clothes were hiding some kind of injury judging by the way he’s holding himself, and they need him conscious and coherent if they want to get to the bottom of this.

“Why do you _think_?” Fury snaps. “He went off-grid for a week and came back with _her_ in tow. He brought her right into my house! So no, he isn’t going to go to Medical. He’s going to stay right here until I get some fucking answers, and he’d better hope I like them!”

Well. That certainly answers _that_ question. Fury does tend to overreact when he feels personally betrayed and he recruited Barton himself – that’s got to sting.

“What do you need me to do, boss?” Phil asks placatingly.

“I want you to go in there and get me those damn answers.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m dealing with her.” He nods towards the end of the corridor, and Phil walks over to observe her.

She sits, impassive, in her cell, and Phil wonders what thoughts she’s carefully keeping hidden from them. Is she at all worried? Scared? Relieved? Or focused on her objectives? She certainly looks too young, younger than someone with her reputation should be, and very beautiful. Phil fleetingly asks himself whether that factored in Barton’s actions at all before dismissing the idea. They meet a lot of beautiful people in their line of work – good and bad – and Barton wouldn’t be as effective as he is if he was swayed by the first pretty face who crossed his path. 

With one last glance at the Widow, Phil turns back to the other cell and focuses on the task at hand.

“Barton,” he says as he enters the cell and the man straightens abruptly from his slouch. This turns out to be a bad idea, however, because he pales even more and starts to tilt sideways.

“Shit,” Phil mutters and catches him before he hits the floor, lowering him down in a more controlled fall. Barton’s skin is clammy and cold and his heart rate is much too high, and Phil doesn’t hesitate before he reaches for his radio. “I need a med team in holding now.”

Fury will just have to deal with it.

Besides, Phil’s reasonably sure he would be even more pissed if Barton died on him now before he could nag him to death.

 

In the end Phil never hears Barton’s side of the story. Fury visits him in Medical a few days after his emergency surgery and gets it himself, and rumour has it the two of them get into a shouting row that has the Director banned from the floor. Phil silently revises his opinion of Barton from very competent to possibly insane. 

Still, whatever happens between them seems to smooth Fury’s ruffled feathers because Barton doesn’t get canned and SHIELD gets a new recruit.

Romanoff flies through her classes, which are a mere formality. She’s good at everything but she’s great at undercover work, which is how Phil ends up being assigned as her handler. He gets a sanitized version of the story then, about a third party determined to take out both Romanoff and Barton forcing them to work together to stay alive. It involves captures and daring rescues and even a puppy, and it sounds so ludicrous that Phil wonders if Fury is fucking with him. Not that it matters if he is.

When it comes to ops, Romanoff doesn’t need him and they both know it. The issue, however, is not her abilities; it’s her loyalty. SHIELD isn’t ready to send her anywhere on her own – not yet anyway – and so they both learn to make do. 

It takes them months to stop dancing around each other and develop a tentative trust between them. Six months in she saves Phil’s life, and he returns the favour two months later. Then one day she makes a joke and Phil laughs before he can stop himself, and he has to accept that he actually likes Natasha Romanoff.

It’s a strange feeling to realise you’ve made friends with one of the world’s deadliest assassins without noticing.

It’s even stranger to suddenly start pondering her social life or lack thereof.

To be fair, it’s something Phil should have concerned himself with sooner. After all, the more ties Natasha has to SHIELD, the less likely she’ll be to turn on them. But besides the obvious, she also needs people to talk to, to train with, and to trust at her back in the field, and as far as Phil can tell, she doesn’t.

It’s been almost a year since Natasha joined SHIELD and now that Phil is paying attention, it looks like she’s made no friends or even acquaintances among her fellow agents, himself excepted. Phil knows SHIELD didn’t exactly welcome her with open arms, which was understandable at first, but surely it’s time to move past it.

It’s not that he is worried per se. Romanoff can take care of herself. But ostracising her isn’t going to help her adjust to her new position, and she needs people at SHIELD to keep her grounded and invested – people other than Phil, who has half a dozen other duties and only a limited amount of time to give her when they’re not in the field together. 

But then he can hardly order her to make friends, and it’s not like he knows what she does with her free time anyway. Maybe all the times he saw her alone at the gym or the cafeteria were the exception and not the rule. So he settles for being there for her if she needs him and hoping he’s wrong. 

He’s pleasantly surprised when it turns out he was.

Phil is entering the gym one morning when he sees her sparring with someone. It’s not his usual time but he’s started going to the gym at the same time as Natasha in the past couple of weeks, figuring it couldn’t hurt. She had been highly unimpressed when she had caught on.

He watches them for a moment, realising quickly that there is no way this is just a one-off. They move together too well for it to be, anticipating the other’s moves in a way that speaks of learned tells and long hours spent on the mats. It’s beautiful to watch and Phil admits he’s surprised: he hadn’t thought there was anyone at SHIELD who could keep up with her even a little. 

He is even more surprised when Natasha’s sparring partner turns sideways to evade a kick and he recognises Barton. He hadn’t known the two had kept in touch, and the paranoid part of his brain immediately stands at attention, wondering if they’re working some kind of long con together. He quickly rejects the idea as nonsense – Barton and Romanoff would hardly be drawing attention to themselves by spending time together if they were – and tries to focus on his own workout until a loud thump drags his attention back to the mats. When he looks over, Barton is on his back, blinking at the ceiling, and Phil tenses minutely, unsure what his reaction is going to be. He quickly relaxes when all the man does is laugh breathlessly – apparently this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

“Show me that move again,” Barton asks, hoisting himself back to his feet, and Natasha smirks at him.

“Are you sure you can take it?”

Barton snorts and waves at her to come at him, and Phil smiles, feeling inordinarily proud. He fleetingly wonders if this is how parents feel like when their kids make friends in kindergarten and then, horrified, can’t shut down that line of thoughts fast enough.

 

Now that he’s seen Barton and Romanoff at the gym, it astonishes him that he never noticed them together before because suddenly they’re everywhere: in the mess eating lunch and in the rec room having coffee and at the range having some sort of competition with handguns and, on one memorable occasion, in Natasha’s quarters when Phil comes by to drop some paperwork. He usually avoids thinking about his assets’ sex lives, but he feels a twinge of unease at the thought of Barton and Romanoff sleeping together. It _is_ none of his business but from what little he knows about Natasha’s past, there may be cause for concern, although he isn’t entirely sure for _whom_.

This leads to a very awkward conversation with Natasha where he uses words like consent and duress. She lets him talk himself more and more into the ground until she finally relents.

“I’m not fucking Barton,” she tells him and Phil blinks at her before giving a decisive nod.

“Right. Of course. I didn’t think you were.” He totally thought she was and her raised eyebrow says she knows it too. “This was all… just in case.”

He thinks she’s going to make a quip at his blabbering self’s expense, but instead her expression softens. 

“Thank you, Phil.”

“You’re welcome,” he manages, still feeling a little wrong-footed.

At least her parting shot – “You’re kind of cute when you’re flustered” – puts them back on an even keel, causing Phil to call out a horrified “I am _not_!” at her back that she doesn’t even deign to acknowledge.

 

Because he and Barton are apparently the only two friends Natasha has at SHIELD (so far, if Phil has anything to say about it), it’s inevitable that they eventually interact in a semi-social setting. It starts with lunch at the cafeteria when Phil happens upon them and Natasha waves him over, and it eventually becomes a semi-regular thing. It’s hardly a hardship: Barton is sarcastic and irreverent and seems to bring out the same in Natasha, and Phil quickly realises that he enjoys the company. But suddenly Natasha’s birthday is coming up and Phil finds himself trying to locate Barton to discuss planning.

His friends think he’s gone insane, and Phil himself isn’t entirely sure they’re wrong. How did this become his life, he wonders, because when was the last time he worried about an asset’s birthday? But then Natasha had still been in training for her first birthday at SHIELD and Phil thinks this might be the first time she has friends to celebrate it with. They should do something to mark the occasion. He’s fairly certain she won’t mind – maybe. Probably. 

Phil finds Barton at the range, practising with his bow, and instead of interrupting he leans back against the wall and watches. Everyone at SHIELD knows this is Barton’s favourite weapon but Phil’s never seen him shoot with it before. Barton never had cause to use it during the ops they both worked on, but looking at him now, Phil will have to bring up the subject next time. Barton’s mastery is obvious, and Phil suddenly wishes he could watch him in action, shooting at something more challenging than stationary paper targets. He’ll have to check whether the man is scheduled on one of the obstacle courses soon; it must be truly magnificent. And not just for the obvious… aesthetic reasons. Dear God, Barton’s arms are ridiculous.

“Hey, Coulson,” Barton says, turning his head to look at him with an easy smile even as he releases another arrow that embeds itself dead centre just like the others. 

Phil finds that very distracting.

“Barton.”

“What can I do for you?” he asks, refocusing on his target. “Got an op for me?”

He sounds hopeful and Phil almost feels bad for disappointing him. What’s the matter with him? “No, sorry. It’s… personal.”

That gets Barton’s attention again and he immediately starts putting his equipment away without another word.

“My office?” Phil offers once he’s done, and Barton follows.

Phil waits ‘til the door’s closed behind them and they’re both seated on either side of his desk and then he says:

“Natasha’s birthday is next Saturday.” 

Barton blinks once, as though taken aback by the opening, but he rallies quickly, his razor sharp focus firmly on Phil.

“Right. Are you guys going to be around or…” Barton trails off, making a vague hand gesture that must mean ‘away on an op I’m not allowed to ask about’. 

Phil is quick to assure him there is nothing on the books and Barton nods to himself, still looking a little flabbergasted. It’s as if he’s got no idea what a birthday celebration entails, and Phil makes a mental note to find out when his birthday is so he can suggest something similar to Natasha when the time comes.

“I was thinking, maybe a nice dinner?” He prompts encouragingly.

“At a restaurant?” Barton sounds dubious and Phil winces. Most field agents prefer to watch their food being prepared, which is why most of them subside on MRE in the field. This wouldn’t be insurmountable in the city, but Phil had thought a simpler solution might do just as well.

“I was thinking we could do it at my place?” Out of the three of them, he is the only one with accommodations outside of SHIELD. “I’m not a very good cook, but I can throw something edible together.”

Barton looks relieved. “Yeah, sure, that would work. I can help if you want. I do okay in the kitchen.”

“It’s a plan then,” Phil says, quietly pleased with himself and with the smile on Barton’s face.

He’s a little less pleased as the week goes by and Barton’s menu suggestions grow more and more elaborate. He can’t fault the man for his sudden and boundless enthusiasm but Phil’s initial amusement soon gives way to alarm when he stops recognizing half of the things on the list. By Saturday, Phil is ready to pull his hair out in frustration – until Barton shows up at his door around 3 pm with bags of groceries. He takes over the kitchen and Phil watches, a little befuddled and very relieved – he may have overstated his own culinary talents and while his apartment may never recover, it looks like they’ll at least have something edible to eat by the time Natasha shows up.

He should be wary of having Barton in his home – all things considered, he doesn’t really know the man, and this is his personal space – but he’s surprisingly easy to be around. Even their silences are comfortable and as the afternoon progresses, Phil realises he likes Barton – for himself, and not just because he’s good for Natasha.

“Why don’t you have your own place?” he asks at some point because it’s obvious Barton – or Clint as he’s been instructed to call him while on the receiving end of a lecture on how to cut the vegetables – loves to cook and it’s not like he can indulge much on SHIELD’s premises.

Clint shrugs. “It’s easier, I guess. Saves on the commute. Besides, I don’t really like cooking for one.”

“Well, tell me if you want to come over to cook sometimes. I wouldn’t say no to leftovers,” Phil says impulsively.

Clint grins and Phil is suddenly hit with the realisation that the man is gorgeous. 

It’s not that he had never noticed before – Phil has eyes, thank you very much – but what had always been a rather abstract observation has just turned into something much more immediate and potent.

Well, shit.

What the fuck is he supposed to do now?

By the time Natasha arrives, dinner is ready and Phil’s kitchen has miraculously returned to its pristine state. The evening is a success, Natasha looking oddly touched by everything and making jokes to cover it up, and the food is delicious. Complimenting the chef makes him smile and look at them through his eyelashes, and _that_ makes Phil’s insides twist in a way that really shouldn’t be as pleasant as it strangely is.

As the evening ends, they all agree that they should do this more often, birthday or not, and Phil finds himself already looking forward to it.

 

There is a next time. And another. Soon it becomes a regular occurrence and Phil’s kitchen acquires brand new pots and rows of spices that have Clint written all over them. Their schedules don’t always make it easy: they’re busy people, and Phil will often come back from an op just in time for Clint to leave on one of his own. That makes Phil feel a little better about missing Clint and Natasha’s friendship for almost a year – had it not been for the man’s medical leave in her early days at SHIELD, they may never have been in the same time zone for more than twenty-four hours.

As Phil spends more and more of his free time with Clint, his attraction grows well past manageable levels. Were Clint anyone else, Phil would have asked him by now – it’s not often that he meets someone he’s so clearly compatible with, and there’s been more than one hint that Clint would be receptive to going out on a date with him. There are, however, a couple of foreseeable complications to pursuing a relationship with Clint, and so Phil decides to hold off until he’s got a better handle on the situation.

When Fury assigns the three of them to work on the same op, Phil worries for a while that it’ll make things awkward. It’s their first job together since he and Clint became more than just colleagues and Phil wonders what might happen when he’ll give Clint orders or when they’ll disagree about something. Luckily it quickly turns out that he was worrying for nothing: he still gives his orders and they still argue while Natasha watches them with a quirked eyebrow and tolerates the gentle flirting that’s happening on the comms. They work smoothly together, like the well-oiled machine they shouldn’t be already but somehow are, and Phil knows it’s only a matter of time before Fury finds them another op.

Instead less than a week passes before Fury asks him how he would feel if he assigned Barton to him permanently. 

Phil is torn. On one hand, there is no denying that the three of them have the makings of one of the best partnerships in SHIELD’s history. With a little more work, Barton and Romanoff could be phenomenal and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to know that they trust him to have their backs. Besides, Phil knows Fury has plans for them he isn’t sharing yet and the man’s plans are usually worth paying attention to. But Barton already has his own strike team and Phil is afraid he would see his transfer as a demotion. More selfishly, it would also put an end to Phil’s hopes of a more personal relationship with Barton, and he tries to tell himself maybe it’s for the best. 

He thinks he’s doing pretty well pretending just that when Natasha plops herself down on his desk one day and asks bluntly: “Why aren’t you fucking Clint yet?”

Phil promptly chokes on his coffee and starts coughing.

“You’re not on the same team,” she goes on as if he wasn’t dying in front of her. “There is nothing in SHIELD’s regulations against it – I checked.”

“What?” Phil manages intelligently as he tries to catch his breath and she rolls her eyes at him.

“You. Clint. Whatever flat surface is available nearby. Does that ring a bell?”

Phil flushes, a dozen half-formed fantasies rushing to the forefront of his mind, and Natasha smirks at him. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation.

Still, might as well use the opportunity to clear up a few things.

“You wouldn’t mind?” he asks.

She looks surprised and then fondly exasperated. “Is _that_ why?”

“It was one area of concern,” he admits. Natasha doesn’t have many friends and Phil didn’t want her to feel excluded if he and Clint started spending time together without her.

“Coulson, I’m a big girl. As long as I’m still invited to eat Clint’s food, I don’t care what you two do in your spare time – although I’d prefer if it was each other.”

“Thanks, I think,” Phil deadpans. “Now get the hell off my desk.”

She leaves with a lazy salute she learned from Clint and Phil tries to refocus his attention on the file in front of him. When it becomes clear it’s a lost cause, he glances at the clock and starts locking up.

He might as well take care of complication number two now.

“So? Did you think about it?” Fury asks when Phil settles down in front of him.

“What does Barton think about it?” he deflects.

“He understands what we’re trying to do with Strike Team Delta. Just the three of you getting the job done, in and out with no questions asked. Plus the timing is right: his second is up for a promotion so he knows he would be leaving his team in good hands.”

Phil nods, trying not to feel too disappointed. Barton knows the rules as well as Phil does, and if he is okay with working under Phil then maybe the flirting was never meant to be anything more than that. It’s… fine. Phil will make sure they’re the best team that ever existed and try not to think too much about what could have been.

“If he is on board then I am too,” he says and Fury raises an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

Phil opens his mouth to protest but Nick ploughs on: “Is this about your thing for Barton?”

Seriously? Does everyone know about it?

“It won’t interfere with the job,” Phil says quickly.

“Well, yeah.” Nick stares at him expectantly and Phil stares back, trying not to feel like he’s failing some sort of test.

“You know what this means, right?” Nick prompts.

Phil frowns, deliberately ignoring the tightening in his chest. “That we can’t be in a relationship. I know the rules, Nick.”

“No, Cheese, it _means_ that you’d better get a move on.”

What?

“What?”

“You are aware that the frat regs don’t apply to pre-existing relationships, right? So put a guy out of his misery and ask him out already so I can sign the damn paperwork and give him to you already.”

Oh.

Phil stands.

“If you’ll excuse me, Director, there is something I need to do.”

“About damn time too,” he hears Nick mutter as he turns towards the door and– 

Wait.

The timing suddenly seems awfully convenient.

Phil turns back slowly.

“Did you and Romanoff plan this together?” he asks.

Fury blinks at him innocently. It’s scarily convincing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Right…

Well, he did want Natasha to make more friends. 

He’ll consider the implications of her making friends with _Fury_ later, for now he’s got an archer to find.

Clint actually finds him first.

 

For years to come, there will be debate regarding who asked out whom. At their wedding, Nick and Natasha settle it by taking all the credit.


End file.
